I've learned nothing from horror, so when this Lovecraftian RPG asked me to hold a ritual in a spooky mansion, I was ready and waiting with candles

The Horror at Highrook has the allure of a single-player board game, a Lovecraftian mystery I was able to pick at on my desktop while enjoying a big mug of cocoa to keep the terrors at bay. Yet, it uses its digital nature well, revolving around moving cards around the manor to initiate timers that'd just feel a little odd if you were doing it in real-life, hunched over waiting for an hourglass to run out all alone. (Ever tried single-player Pictionary?)

This card-based mystery comes from Nullpointer Games (and published by Outersloth), and revolves around a group of investigators from disparate backgrounds coming together to investigate a creepy manor where a family has disappeared with nary a trace. From mechanists to occult scholars – there's a touch of the weird and plaguepunk to each character. The scant evidence the group do find point to some odd rituals, and the only way they'll be able to find out what happened is by – perhaps unwisely – retracing the occult magic that seems to have made things go awry in the first place.

Card out of space

The Horror at Highrook asks you to spend several hours essentially looking at the exact same thing – the manor itself is a big board game grid where each room is made up of tiles. While many rooms are locked at first, you'll eventually end up moving your cards between each room liberally as you juggle resource gathering with ritual prep by the end of the game.

Everything happens in real-time (though the clock can be paused to read lore or plan future moves), meaning I can pick up and move any card wherever I want whenever I want – providing a room has enough free spaces. There's no turns to worry about, just clocks, timers, and the rumbling of tummies.

Each investigator is represented by a card, as is everything else – from consumable support cards moonshine to calm the nerves to action cards like the Library Codex or Spyglass. Though there are four characters, this is a strictly single-player game – as much as the set-up does remind me of some similarly themed multiplayer board games (which we adore, as our Betrayal at House on the Hill 3rd Edition review attests!).

Each room allows a character to perform an action within it by placing them on the appropriate tiles, and each action requires you to meet certain stats. Plague Doctor Caligari, for instance, is a dab hand performing experiments in the Laboratory or digging up things in the Courtyard. Place the good doctor next to the Simple Trowel in the Courtyard, they'll be locked into the action until it completes over time, uncovering new cards as a reward – from resources to more cards that can be actioned to move the mystery forward.

Which means you're essentially moving these different specialists all over the place to keep picking at the manor's secrets. Along the way you'll need to manage their needs too. Each has injury, sleep, madness, and hunger meters – some actions can be taken to, say, have them all take a kip in the Guest Rooms (they're not leaving until the job is done). Likewise, some care needs to be taken to the environment – ghostly apparitions may pop up to test the sanity of those taking actions nearby, and you can bet this increases the further in you get.

There's a real simplicity to The Horror at Highrook that makes it satisfying to interact with on a basic level, but the constant added complexity of additional rooms and bits of lore you find keeps you going. It took me between six to seven hours to hit the end, but it rarely felt like I was doing the same thing over and over again even though, essentially, I was just doing a lot of the same things over and over. It might be easy to take that as a negative, but to me it speaks to some well judged systems pacing, enough to keep me hooked for a few evenings but not too daunting for me to be afraid I'd forget what I was in the middle of when booting it back up.

The more familiar you get with the systems, the less surprising it can feel. Booster cards, for example, are limited with how many you can have at once. This did cause me one problem where I needed two embers – at a point where only two were possible to get – for the Forge to upgrade the stat-boosting properties of a tool card, only to realize the reason I wasn't getting a second was because I had squirrelled one away unnoticed in my stock of cards already. Outside of being foolish like me, though, you will notice that you can reach a state where you're essentially just staying topped up on max resources rather than really struggling. Despite all the meters – there's nothing particularly challenging.

But, I'm not sure I would want The Horror at Highrook to be more challenging than it is. The cosmic horror mystery is fun to muddle through, placing cards and shuffling them around to gradually uncover a mystery, and I was pleased that it had more twists and evolutions to the formula than I initially expected going in – even if the gameplay loop remains basically the same throughout. The sense of atmosphere is what kept me hooked, constantly pushing my little card pals a bit further and further as the days ticked away, uncovering creepiness. I'm not sure how long it will stick with me, but a cosy-creepy getaway for a few nights still nets the stay at The Horror at Highrook a thumbs up from me for fellow travellers of the arcane. Just mind the ghouls.

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